


Tradition

by anoyo



Series: Traditions [1]
Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-01
Updated: 2009-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-04 02:49:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anoyo/pseuds/anoyo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time it happened, Arthur took it in stride. Merlin had finished his morning chores and was preparing to leave when, at the door, he turned back to Arthur and said, "Arthur, when you really mean what you're saying, you're a very good speaker. For speeches and things, I mean." After saying this, apparently randomly, Merlin smiled and left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tradition

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by [H](http://vamplover82.livejournal.com), with my thanks. The tradition that Merlin sports is actually my family's own, in a way. I twisted parts of it for the time and the canon, but it's close to the Welsh tradition we once had and have morphed, haha. Hope you enjoy! Originally posted [here](http://community.livejournal.com/merlinadvent/26464.html).

The first time it happened, Arthur took it in stride. Merlin had finished his morning chores and was preparing to leave when, at the door, he turned back to Arthur and said, "Arthur, when you really mean what you're saying, you're a very good speaker. For speeches and things, I mean." After saying this, apparently randomly, Merlin smiled and left.

That first time, Arthur thought it had something to do with a short call to arms speech he'd given a few days previous. Merlin was a bit slow, after all; perhaps it had taken him a while to realize that was the sort of thing you complimented a fellow over. When Merlin concluded the next morning's chores with another such compliment -- _"Arthur, you're good at forming strategy and planning when you aren't trying to show off"_ \-- Arthur didn't quite register a pattern, but he did wonder if his manservant hadn't added something new, and perhaps illegal, to his diet.

On the sixth such morning, Arthur asked Merlin, after his compliment, "Are you feeling all right?" He hadn't intended for it to sound, well, insulting, but he was suspicious, and it certainly wasn't Arthur's fault if he really only had two manners of speaking, or that one of them was insulting. Whose fault it _was_, Arthur didn't stop to consider.

Merlin simply replied, "Er, yes?" with a raised eyebrow and left. Arthur's question had brought him no less confusion, except in connection with his wondering if Merlin wasn't spending a bit too much time with Gaius for company. The eyebrow was proof positive of that, at least.

Arthur's first resort when confronted with a topic that confused him was to make Merlin look it up, which didn't very well work when Merlin was the topic -- though Arthur allowed that it would be very convenient if it _did_ \-- so he continued on to his second resort. Namely: snooping. Unfortunately for Arthur's idea of time well spent, spying on Merlin involved a lot of watching him ineptly do chores for either Arthur or Gaius -- or, actually, a multitude of people, as Arthur was quickly learning that "no" was probably not in Merlin's vocabulary.

Arthur wasn't one to have a great number of contingency plans waiting for when his first and second choices went awry, simply due to the fact that, as the prince, his first and second choices rarely had the chance to do so. When it came to battle, or his guard, he had back up plans for the back up plans of his back up plans, but he hadn't really considered Merlin complimenting him on a daily basis something that would require the assumption of deadly harm.

Obviously, he'd been wrong. When Merlin had continued this trend for more than two weeks, and Arthur wasn't getting anywhere his way, he caved in and admitted to himself that he really needed to find a _different_ way. He didn't like asking Morgana things, as it tended to make him look idiotic -- or Morgana herself did that, Arthur wasn't really sure -- but he could admit that she was often a source of excellent information.

Just past the midmorning bell, Arthur knocked on Morgana's door. Gwen answered it, as Arthur had been expecting, and Morgana greeted him with the smile she always wore in Arthur's presence. He was completely sure she'd manufactured the part-mothering, part-condescending gesture just to drive him insane, and it worked wonders. He reminded himself that he had come to ask her a question and steeled himself into his best princely charm.

"Morgana," Arthur greeted pleasantly. "I have a question of a somewhat personal matter that I was hoping either you or Gwen might have the answer to."

"To which Gwen or I might have the answer," Morgana said, gesturing Arthur into the room as she spoke.

Even as he stepped in, Arthur asked, "What?" then, "Does that mean you can answer my question?"

Though Arthur didn't see it, he was relatively sure the tone in Morgana's voice meant she'd rolled her eyes at him. "Arthur, I don't even know what you're going to ask me. I will try to answer your question, if I can."

"Fair enough," Arthur said, ignoring that he still wasn't sure entirely what had just happened. "I was wondering if you'd noticed anything strange about Merlin in the last couple weeks."

"You mean the compliment thing?" Morgana asked, sitting down to continue the conversation. "Gwen and I had just been discussing that the other day, actually. Has he been doing it to you, too, then?"

"Yes!" Arthur said, with a bit more relief than he'd intended to show toward the fact that he hadn't simply been imagining things. "For the last nineteen days, exactly."

"Oh," Gwen said, then apparently realizing she'd said it, repeated, "Oh," again, and blushed.

"Yes?" Morgana asked, smiling at her maid.

"Well," Gwen said, "that was the first day of December. Lady Morgana and I were having trouble pinpointing when it started, as Merlin's always been sort of polite and complimentary, so we weren't sure _exactly_ when it started being every day."

Arthur refrained from scowling at Merlin's purported politeness, and instead said, "Is that significant? The beginning of December, I mean."

"Maybe," Gwen said, looking somewhat nervous. "I mean, didn't advent start this week? Do we know what the customs of Ealdor are, for the solstice time?"

"I suppose not," Morgana said, pursing her lips. "The easiest way would be to ask Merlin himself, wouldn't it?"

"You do realize we're referring to Merlin, don't you? He's likely to stop altogether, thinking we're insulted or something," Arthur said. He huffed slightly. "Besides, I asked him and he was just confused."

Gwen smiled slightly. "That does sound about right. Well, I'll ask him in a roundabout way. Maybe that will work?"

As it happened, it did, but only mostly. Morgana and Gwen had met Arthur in his chambers, this time around, to tell him that Gwen had spoken with Merlin, and while she'd gotten a few answers, she probably wasn't going to get any more.

"I asked, and he said that it did have something to do with advent, but then something reminded him of something else he had to be doing, and when I asked him again later, he couldn't remember we'd been having the conversation at all." Gwen smiled slightly through her blush. "Then I sort of gave up."

Arthur knew that, under those circumstances, he would have given up, too, more likely than not. "At least we have an answer. Merlin will go back to his normal self after the advent is over, apparently. I'm sure we'll all survive until then."

"Oh, yes, certainly," Morgana said, laughing. "We were having such a tough time of it, what with all the compliments."

Just as Arthur had figured the mystery was over and done with, there was no twenty-fifth compliment after Merlin's morning chores were completed. In fact, Merlin said barely anything throughout the chores, seemingly distracted, and continued to be so during the course of the day and that night's feast. It was disconcerting, to say the least, and Arthur couldn't help but wonder if it was contagious, as both Morgana and Gwen had been watery-eyed and distractible during the feast, though they both assured him that it was nothing to worry about. Arthur was preparing for bed, truthfully, when Merlin seemed to come down from the clouds and into his quarters, followed by a cheerful smile.

"Good evening," Merlin said, stepping into Arthur's rhythm to help him prepare for bed. An ordinary phrase, but the most Merlin had said without prompting the entire day, to Arthur's knowledge. "Sorry it's so late, but I've had a terrible time thinking up something that would work. The month apparently wasn't long enough."

Arthur was fairly sure this was in reference to something, but he could not fathom what. "Merlin, I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Your advent truth. I couldn't think of anything all month that would really work, or fit, or anything, until about an hour ago. Then I had to work out how to say it without confusing myself," Merlin said, setting up the stack of new firewood by the fireplace for during the night, as the longest night of the year had only just passed.

"My advent truth?" Arthur asked. "I don't know what that is, Merlin."

Merlin turned to look over his shoulder at Arthur, then, and frowned. "Really? Strange. Maybe that's what Gwen was asking about last week. I don't think Camelot follows the tradition, then." He pivoted so that he was facing Arthur, though he was still squatting near the fire. "It's the one truth that you want someone to remember that you feel about them for the upcoming year, above the others. You know, the things I've said in the morning. Advent truths." Merlin paused. "I think this might be Ealdor's version of the gifts you and Morgana gave one another earlier. We don't have enough things to give one another presents for things like advent, where I come from, so we give truths."

"And these truths are the compliments you've been giving everyone?" Arthur asked, clarifying.

"Yes? I guess so. I mean, they don't have to be compliments, but it wouldn't be very helpful if they weren't positively phrased," Merlin replied, shrugging.

"Right," Arthur said.

"Anyway, it took me a really long time to figure out what your advent truth was. I figured out Morgana's and Gwen's and Gaius' weeks ago, but yours is harder." Merlin smiled, which Arthur felt might have been a trick to put him off the fact that Merlin had just implied that Arthur was difficult to compliment. "But I figured it out! So, here it is. Arthur, all the year, I wish you to remember that you are every bit the man that Camelot will one day need as its king. When you do things for your people with no reward for yourself, when you show fairness without the taint of your own bias, when you lead your knights with both honor and intelligence, you show the king that you will be. Throughout the next year, in health and happiness, remember this truth." With that, Merlin smiled again and pivoted to finish trimming the fire for the night.

Arthur stood there, for a moment, committing what Merlin had said to memory before the first startled thoughts made their way across his mind. He didn't know what it meant that the very first thing he considered was that he might know why Gwen and Morgana had seemed a bit teary-eyed, if Merlin was this maudlin with everything he'd said. Of course, part of Arthur was forced to admit that Merlin hadn't been precisely _maudlin_, but rather eloquent, and where on earth had _that_ ability come from?

Finally, Arthur managed aloud, "I, ah, had never heard of that tradition before." He cleared his throat once. "I don't have any sort of truth, but per our own tradition, your advent gift should be in your quarters. Happy Yule."

Merlin smiled happily back at Arthur. "Happy Yule."


End file.
